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Saturday, April 19, 2008

Apprentices conspire as pressure mounts

By DENNIS D. MUHUMUZA

The assertiveness associated with Kenyans must be fake after the eviction of Joyce Mbaya from The Apprentice Africa. She became the second Kenyan in three weeks to be fired for refusing to fight when they would have won. And on Sunday Joyce pinned none for the loss of Matrix Corporation. When Shobanjo asked, "Who do you recommend I should fire?" she replied, "Sir, as the project manager, I take responsibility for neglecting the things I did during this task…"

It was the first time the astonished C.E.O was seeing a leader blame herself. In all fairness, either Nigeria's Eunice or Ghanaian Regina deserved the boot, but Joyce forced Shobanjo to wag his trademark finger and pronounce her fired.

It was a living example of self-sacrifice and was justified by the parting hugs the dashing Kenyan received from the two girls she had "saved from the guillotine" before she boarded the home-bound taxi.

The week's task was to "create a four-page newspaper insert for Bank PHB" and the team that came up with the most compelling newspaper insert design won.

Mr. Shobanjo reminded all this was his field and they had to walk the beat to be able to please him. Homeboy Oscar Kamukama, project manager for Zulu Corporation, was midway accused of weak leadership, and knew he would be roasted in the boardroom.

Luckily, the ancient view that you can tell a lot about a person by looking at their shoes inspired Zulus to photograph pictures of shoes of different people: a security guard, a primary school pupil and some team members. The original design grippingly captured the bank's desire to serve and meet the needs of people of all walks of life.

Meanwhile, the Matrix Corporation, buoyed on by that advert that that one day cars will run on water, "At Bank PHB we are already thinking like that," decided on man one day settling on the moon with booming economic activities, ending with, "Bank PHB will be the first bank in space!" It simply sounded fantasy-tic!

But "no consumer has the time to waste trying to pick information," admonished Shobanjo, "your design lacks what I call the 'wow factor' but Zulu Corp.'s design makes you curious to want to know more about the content."

That’s how Zulu Corporation won. Gone are six contestants, as conspiracy and pressure continues to mount.